Gillingham to ditch 'old-school' transfer approach
Brad Galinson bought a majority stake in Gillingham from long-serving predecessor Paul Scally three years ago [Getty Images] Gillingham's American owner Brad Galinson wants the League Two club to place greater emphasis on analytics in their recruitment this summer. The Gills have slumped to four successive defeats and are marooned in mid-table in League Two after what Galinson admits has been a frustrating season. But he is hoping some smart recruitment will turn Gillingham into a promotion-chasing team next season.
To make sure the club get their transfers right he has ordered a modernisation programme. "We have good scouts. We have a good network of people that can watch players and watching players is important but it's a bit old school," said Galinson.
"The thing that we've been missing - and this summer will be the first time when we really jump on it - is the analytics side of it. "There's so many systems now where over thousands of minutes they can see movements and they can see strengths and weaknesses of players. You see physicality now.
You can see speed. You can see top speed. You can see distance.
"What we've done is we've relied on old school - 'I know this guy who knows a guy who saw him play one match and he looks really good'. "The problem with that is the probability of success is a lot lower than when you combine that with 2,000 minutes of analytics. "This summer, which is the first time we can really significantly recruit, we are aggressively merging those two.